Mmmmm, that's Del.icio.us

Now Del.icio.us is a site I can see being useful at work. For a lot of the steps so far in the Libraries 2.0 process I've felt like we were learning to play with toys that may be kinda cool to mess around with in our spare time. Del.icio.us looks like a practical tool which would have applications here at work. As my team deals with Interlibrary Loans, we have a lot of online resources that we use to verify details and find items or libraries. If I have time at another branch, or if someone else wants to try to process them, I have to rely on the old grey matter to remember where to look. This would make my bookmarks portable and easy to share which should help in workflows. It will also give me easy access to my favourite sites if I'm on leave or just away from my desk. The import/export option would also make it easy to update bookmarks for the customer service desk and to make sure both the del.icio.us and browser bookmarks match. I need to spend some time tagging my bookmarks to make it more effective but I'll have to leave that for another day.

On a Roll(yo)

I'm struggling to find a valid use for Rollyo. Almost all the things I could think of to make useful searchrolls from were search engines themselves which don't work. So I went with an old favourite and did a recipe searchroll. I can't really think of reasons why you would want to limit your search to only sites you know, leaving out the possibility of new and exciting sites... I guess I always figure there could be something better out there that I just haven't heard of yet.
I guess the main advantage is limiting your search results (but good use of search terms can do that too) with the option to search the web if your Searchroll is unsuccessful.
Don't think I'm a convert yet, but I guess you never know....

I've added My recipe search Rollyo on the condition that if you find and make anything exceptionally yummy (I'll even take moderately yummy), you have to bring me some to taste!

That (Library)Thing You Do!!

I've headed over to Library Thing and had a bit of a play. I haven't catalogued many of the books I own or have read, figure I'd be here for months. If I remember to use it, I think it would be most helpful for keeping track of all the books I keep meaning to read as I could then search by tags etc rather than having a stab in the dark when I go to read them 2 years later.

As for our customers, we have a lot of customers who have notebooks or exercise books catalogued by author, series etc with their own markings for the ones they've requested, reserved and so on. While I'm sure they could benefit, it would take a lot of effort to convert them from pen and paper to keyboard and mouse.

From a staffing perspective, I quite like the suggester/unsuggester tool. Everyone who has ever worked in a library knows how difficult it is to answer the old classic "Can you recommend a good book?". Maybe it should be added to our Customer Service Desk shortcuts.....

Images: the next generation

Ok, so my blogging has stalled a bit, I was a bit wary of 'play week', mostly for the potential to spend a lot more time than I should messing around with some of the toys out there on the net.

I guess that's been my biggest problem with this program, allowing myself to benefit from the program without it turning into a work sanctioned procrastination!

There are a lot of interesting imaging sites out there (and probably a lot more that are pointless ones!) but this one caught my eye.


Ahh, if only I could complete this program with the push of a button...